To ask when did you realise you are old?

[MyMonsteraisDeliciosa]

My son just changed my phone settings for me so the font is big and I can read everything. I'm just turned 43 and I just felt properly old for the first time. Boo! I'm waiting for new glasses which should help but I've always had perfect vision until the last couple of years. Poor me

What was it that made you realise you are no longer a youngster? Please.help me feel less alone in my sudden dotage!

Loving this thread. Seems the official answer is 43.

My anecdotes:

• being told 'didn't you do well' by a man in his twenties when I brought my second hand haul to the till. To my endless displeasure, instead of laughing I took umbrage and left rather po-faced.
• being hit on by men in their 60s.
• finding work last year with a group of people mainly younger than me and asked 'why did you have children so late?', as if being a 43 mum of primary kids makes me geriatric, lol.

Watching the end-of-year specials: ‘Have Got News for You’ was presented by terrifying grandpas-aka my peers who are were the young, edgy alternative comedians...
DP and I were looking at each other in abject horror by half way through, as the scales fell from our (increasingly long sighted) eyes.

When my DD 6 asked if i watched black & white tv when i was a child.

I did watch B&W TV as a child.

Watching The Railway Children and thinking Bernard Cribbins looked young in it, then realising that's because I'm older than he was when he filmed it.

An old mo.ent for me was walking round Asda and the piped music was by The Stanglers!

When I received a letter from the NHS inviting me to go for bowel screening!
Also recently I realised that I have started making the same groaning noises my Dad used to make when he got up from a chair!

Not me but my husband felt ancient in the summer.. he’s 53, I was buying some DMs in the shop ‘office’ my husband started chatting to the sales girl about DMs and how he used to wear them when he was a punk.. the girl said “That’s so interesting, I love talking about history!” 😆

I'm 41 and have been short-sighted all my life, wearing glasses/lenses from about the age of seven.

Recently, I picked up a jar to read the label and had to move my glasses down my nose.

Fuck, they're going to tell me I need varifocals at my next eye test, aren't they?

@MarcelineMissouri

Oh god, I’m 41 & I always say about the wonders of technology when I tap the old debit card. You’ve made me realise younger staff must think ‘bloody hell, poor woman obviously doesn’t get out much’ 🤣

@SkintHippy

When I realised (at 52) that I could no longer sit carelessly on the floor/grass in the fashion of bendy youth. I met DD (21) and her friend in the local park for lunch. They sat on the grass easily. I had to sort of carefully fall over (have a fall?) to get down there. Then I couldn't get up. At one point I was on all fours bleating "help me!" and DD and friend had to haul me upright like a defective deckchair.

This has cracked me up! Thank you SkintHippy 😂😂😂

I don't really feel old - I am 62 , maybe because my parents are still alive (87 & 90) and still pretty active and involved in life - volunteering etc no shielding for them I'm still working (currently furloughed), of course I don't look 'young' but that doesn't bother me.

When people I work with say I was born in 1999. I think no surely you should still be in primary school.
Then I realise I'm just old.

Over the last year probably. Getting close to 40 and I work with young adults and recently I felt like they see me as so old.
Incidentally I didn't really feel grown up until the age of 31!

@LadyJaye

I'm 41 and have been short-sighted all my life, wearing glasses/lenses from about the age of seven.

Recently, I picked up a jar to read the label and had to move my glasses down my nose.

Fuck, they're going to tell me I need varifocals at my next eye test, aren't they?

Oh that was sinilar for me too. I went for an eye scan and the optician said there was "age related degeneration". Since then I complain about the dimness of lamps and the smallness of print...and sound exactly like my mother.

I'm not.

To me old is an attitude. It's scowling at everything and saying everything is shit and pretending you grew up in the 60s even though you're about 35 and just a dismal git.

I've met people like that - not even 40 and already doing the Victor Meldrew act. I suspect it's tied to feeling too tired/bored/hungover to ever learn anything new, so they just deem everything awful instead.

When I was about 28 or so I realised I'd lost touch a bit with pop culture, as I'd been raising babies, so I made an effort to catch up and keep up with things. It makes it so much easier to have conversations and find common ground with nice people. I don't watch or listen to anything I don't enjoy but I make sure I'm aware of it. I don't ever want to be one of those people who relishes never having read a new book or listened to a new song or seen a new film since 1997.

Actually the only time I feel 'old' is on Mumsnet when the comment ' were you born in the 50s?' crops up ... yes, I was born in the 1950s .

A girl at work told me she was going out at the weekend and I said "what, at night??"

That was my moment.

Duan totally agree, 'age is an attitude' ... my DM is a great example of living life to the full - she is 87, goes to Yoga, volunteers, makes new friends, keeps up with current affairs, dresses trendily (a couple of years ago she told me how pleased she was with a new jumper 'found it in a fab shop called Top Shop' ), she doesn't have it easy, cares for my DF who has mild dementia but she just has a great 'get up and go' attitude.

Going to a and e and realising the doctor was younger than me.

When the beautician referred to my freckles as 'Age Spots'.I was 38 years old at the time

@schnubbins

When the beautician referred to my freckles as 'Age Spots'.I was 38 years old at the time

Oooh that's a bad one. Ouch

When I was 28. A policeman knocked on our door late one night. I just stopped myself from asking if he was old enough to be driving .....

@Duanphen I do agree, I love pop music, contemporary film and culture and I have good friends through work and uni who are the same age as my early 20s kids so I'm definitely not an old moaner! I think it's more about the cognitive dissonance between still feeling young and having sudden age related decline like eyesight problems. And making "that" noise when I get up from a low chair. And suddenly having a good knee and a bad knee. And a good hip and a bad hip

I remember my Nana saying that she still felt 17 in her head when she was well into her seventies, I totally understand her now

I was 36 and had recently made Director. I decided to go and welcome a few new junior staff in person. While chatting to a young man, I had a flashback to when I was a new intern on a graduate scheme and the then Director had done the exact same thing I was doing. Only the positions were reversed. And I remembered thinking the Director was a nice man, but old enough to be my father. So old. In a mental panic, I calculated our age difference and was shocked to realise, I was old enough to be a (teen) mother to this new colleague. I was like, oh shit, the next generation is here in the workplace. My generation isn’t the youngest anymore. I’m officially senior, old.

@Bargebill19

When I was 28. A policeman knocked on our door late one night. I just stopped myself from asking if he was old enough to be driving .....

Ooh I get this! A very tiny young police officer knocked my flat door a few nights ago, I really had to reign myself in from asking if I could accompany her until she got back in her car. It's rough round here and she must have been around my daughter's age so I instinctively wanted to protect her, being a large, strong and bolshy middle aged woman . How embarrassing (for me, I'm sure she is well able to look after herself!)